


bold; over the worst of it

by decinq



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Day drinking, Jack Knew First, M/M, Sexual Tension, Spring C, casual alcohol and drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 20:07:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3823138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decinq/pseuds/decinq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Spring C,” Jack says, “is full of mystery.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	bold; over the worst of it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reserve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reserve/gifts).



> my soul was well and truly destroyed by bitty's twitter today. title taken from 'chelsea dagger' because the hawks won and i'm emo about that, too.
> 
> unbeta'd, and all mistakes are my own.

Eric loses a shoe, but that isn’t how it starts.

Saturday morning starts with Shitty at his window and a mimosa being thrust into his hand. 

Saturday night ends with---

Well.

 

 

 

 

They have a massive breakfast, and Shitty forces the frogs to eat until they feel sick. “You think you’re mad now, but I am the boss of you, and you’ll thank me later.” 

Jack smirks at Bitty across the table and eats his bacon with his fingers, like a heathen. Bitty rolls his eyes, but smiles back.

He’s excited.

He turns back to his eggs, tweets, and it’s not long until the team piles out of the dining hall and back to the Haus.

 

 

 

Eric’s got his shorts on, happy about the sunshine and feeling fuzzy from the first beer he shotgunned with Shitty the second they were out the front door. 

Ransom slaps his ass and says, “Your booty’s better, bro.” 

Bitty could cry. “I can’t tell the difference, but thanks for doin’ 1 am squats with me.” 

“By next year, you’ll be giving Jack a run for his money, eh?” 

Jack scoffs from behind his camera, says, “As if.”

“Rude,” Bitty says, and Jack looks up, and then smiles when he catches Bitty’s eye. 

“Jack, you’re doing homework. Today’s a party. Get with the program,” Shitty says. Then: “Gun this.”

“It’s 11 am.”

“Oh my god, Jack, get your shit together and shot gun that beer.”

“All the cool kids are doing it,” Eric says, taking a sip from his own drink.

“Okay, I get it,” Jack says, and he pops a hole into the bottom of the can with his canine, pops the tab, and shotguns. When he crushes the empty can in his hand and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, he says, “Lots of chirps from you, eh Bittle?”

 

 

 

At some point, Bitty ends up back in the Haus with Jack and Chowder. Chowder is trying to find out where Farmer is, and Bitty is sitting on the counter while Jack makes them sandwiches. 

“You should put on sunscreen,” Jack says without looking at Bitty. “The backs of your legs are turning pink.”

Bitty thinks that means something, that Jack noticed, is telling him as much, but then Jack hands Bitty his sandwich and loses his train of thought after biting into it. “This is the best thing I have ever tasted in my life.”

“It’s literally cheese and tomatoes. Dude.”

“It’s incredible,” Bitty says, and takes a massive bite. “Thanks,” he mumbles around his mouthful of food.

“You’re drunk,” Jack says. 

“So’re you,” Eric says, “But I couldn’t make sandwiches right now. So thanks.” 

Bitty swings his legs out to kick Jack softly, and sips his beer in between bites of his sandwich. Jack finishes his first, and waits for Bitty with his arms crossed over his chest. When Bitty makes to jump down from the counter, Jack wraps his hand around Bitty’s still swinging ankle. “Sunscreen first. Then I’ll drink you under the table, if you’re up for it.”

Jack takes a photo of him with Shitty, and then Bitty loses track of his phone for a bit. He starts applying sunscreen to any of his teammates who get close enough for him to reach, and they tease him about mother henning, but they also give him sips of their drinks. Lardo is mixing vodka into coolers, because she’s disgusting and likes to suffer, apparently, but it also tastes amazing. Bitty figures, when else can he excuse mixing carbonated vodka sugar juice with more vodka, if not college. 

It’s all good. He’s finished all his papers and the sun is out. It’s the warmer than it’s been all year, and despite how scared he’s been about the end of the semester, what it all means, he’s also happy. Jack’s been spending more time with him and the guys than he normally does, trying to fit in everything he can before he’s gone for good.

He looks around for Jack, and when he can’t see him anywhere nearby, Bitty pats his pockets for his phone. Oh. 

Well, shit. He knows Jack must have it, thinks he remembers Jack pocketing it with a smile on his face.

Bitty looks around for Jack; he walks around the back of the Haus, finds Ransom and Holster destroying Nursey and Dex at beer pong that they’ve set up on their disgusting patio furniture. Each of them let Bitty take trick shots for them, which he’s please about, but then they also make him drink when he scores on each of them, which he’s also fine with, but pretends to be put upon anyway. 

He’s got the second of the two red solo cups bottom’s up when he feels a hand at his back, and Jack says, “There you are. Where’d you go?”

“He’s been dunking trick shots and messing with our game,” Holster says. “Plus he’s shwasted.” 

“Am not,” Bitty says, and leans back into Jack’s hand. He turns his head to look at Jack’s face, and asks, “‘ve you got my phone?”

The pressure of Jack’s hand increases softly, and he nods. “Yeah,” he says, his face turned into Bitty, and he can feel Jack’s breath on his cheek. “Shitty helped me tweet the photo of you guys. Then he made it the, y’know, profile picture or whatever. Says to show the world how much you love him.” 

“Thanks,” Bitty says. “But like, can I have it back?”

“Oh,” Jack says, then smiles. “Yeah, ‘course.” 

“Alright lovebirds. Gather the troops so we can go join the thralls of Wellies who are waiting for our presence so they can get well and truly fucked up,” Ransom says, then claps his hands.

Bitty can feel himself blush, but Jack’s hand doesn’t fall from his back. Jack pushes into him until Eric steps forward, and then he guides them around to the front of the house. They find Lardo and Farmer, and then Chowder and Shitty aren’t far behind. It takes them another half hour to get everyone gathered, but they do manage, which seems to be the important part, as far as Bitty can tell.

 

 

Lardo is on Shitty’s shoulders, and Jack hands him a beer and says, “Last one before Shitty gets serious,” and then opens the tab on his own.

Bitty spills down the front of his shirt, looks down at himself. 

He’s missing a shoe. “I’m a mess,” he says. “What happened to my shoe? How’d that happen?” 

“Spring C,” Jack says, “is full of mystery.” 

Bitty laughs at the rhyme, then says, “‘m bein’ serious.”

Jack rolls his eyes, but his cheeks are pink when he says, “Give me your phone again. I don’t want you to spill beer over my head. Or fall.” 

“What’re you talkin’ about?”

“I got your back, c’mon,” Jack says, and then he crouches, like Bitty is supposed to know what that’s about.

“Uhm.”

“Climb on, okay, it’ll be. Whatever. You’re missing a shoe.”

“Oh. Uh, okay one sec,” he taps out a tweet with as much coherency as he can, then hands Jack his phone before settling on Jack’s shoulders. “This is ridiculous, I’m a normal si--”

Jack stands with Bitty on his shoulders, and Bitty grasps at Jack’s hair to steady himself. “Bits,” he says, sounding terse. “Little looser, eh? I’m not gonna drop you.”

“Sorry,” Bitty says, and then laughs when Jack holds onto Bitty’s shin with one hand while taking a sip of his beer with the other. 

“Let’s go challenge Shits and Lardo,” Jack says, and squeezes Bitty’s leg.

 

 

 

It’s ridiculous.

It’s--

 

 

Bitty can feel Jack’s shoulders shake when he laughs. Jack is holding onto the nobs of Bitty’s ankles, rubbing his thumb against the soft skin.

Eric’s drunk.

He’s still missing a shoe. He tries to get his feet together so that he can pull his other shoe off with his toes, but Jack squeezes his ankles tight. “Stop,” he whispers, but then says, “Lardo, can we throw Bitty’s last shoe into your backpack?”

Jack unties it for him, pulls Bitty’s sock off. “You owe me a million favours,” Jack says, and Bitty drags his nails over Jack’s scalp. “No I don’t, you’re going to miss doing things for me. Who’s gonna help me reach the baking soda next year?”

“Literally everyone in the Haus is taller than you. Surely someone can help you.”

“Not the same,” Bitty says, and then presses the condensation of his beer can into Jack’s neck. 

Jack presses back into it, says, “I’m getting a bit,” he trails off, shakes his shoulders out a little, and Bitty barely sways at the movement.

“I’ll hop down, just make sure no one breaks my toes or somethin’ ‘kay?” 

Jack tucks his head into his chest and leans forward. Bitty lifts himself off Jack’s shoulders, lands off centered in front of Jack, and Jack’s hands on his hips steady him. 

Bitty can feel the vibrations of music in his feet, but he can’t really see anything. Shitty and Lardo are just to Jack’s right, Ransom and Holster in front of Shitty, and the frogs in front of them. 

Jack’s body at Bitty’s back makes Bitty’s nerves feel on edge, like there’s static between them that’s waiting to snap, tightly wound and bound to bite at him no matter what.

Jack inches just that little bit closer to Bitty, and presses into him. Jack’s body is strong, built in a way that Bitty never could be, and if Bitty were sober, he wouldn’t believe it.

He presses back into Jack slightly, enough to be noticeable but not so much that he couldn’t deny it if he wanted to. Jack’s left hand moves from Bitty’s waist, inches forward just a bit so that it’s resting over Bitty’s abdomen, and Bitty gasps before he can clamp down on the sound.

Jack’s breath is shallow and quick in Bitty’s ear, and it hits Bitty then, that no one in this massive crowd of people knows that this pivotal thing is happening to him, this serious, confusing moment is something he’s a part of, and all these strangers are a part of it too, even if they don’t know it.  
“Jack,” Bitty says, even though he doesn’t know what he means by it. The pressure of Jack’s hand on his front increases, and Bitty gets pressed more snuggly against Jack, and Bitty can feel where he’s half hard in his shorts. “Oh.”

“Just--” Jack starts. “You’ve been difficult. I’ve been trying to be…obvious, about my intentions. I didn’t want to leave without--”

“Jack,” Eric says, and he tries to turn to face Jack, but it’s crowded and there’s no space around or between them, and so he just settles his hand over Jack’s on his stomach, then says, “Later.”

 

 

 

Later, they walk back to the Haus with as many of their teammates as they can find. Jack’s arm is around Bitty the whole walk back. It’s chilly, the sun having fallen hours ago, and none of them wore layers all day. 

Jack’s hand keeps dipping into the collar of Bitty’s shirt like a promise, and if anyone notices, nobody says.

“Shitty and I are gonna smoke,” Lardo says. “You guys want in?”

Ransom begs off as soon as they get in the door, and Holster follows suit, claiming advil and water as a part of their pre-bed routine that he needs to partake in. 

“We should eat something before bed,” Jack says. “Absorb whatever’s left in our stomachs. I think I had like, twenty beers.”

“Jacky boy,” Shitty says. “You fuckin’ rallied and I love you, you amazing french genius. Bits, we got any pies?”

Bitty nods as they walk into the kitchen, Jack’s arm finally falling away from Bitty’s shoulders. 

The four of them end up eating the blueberry crumble right out of the pie plate, and while Shitty and Lardo pass a joint back and forth, Jack hooks his ankle with Bitty’s. 

It’s all--

Bitty finishes his glass of water, then rubs at his eyes while pressing his foot into Jack’s. “I think I gotta go to bed.” And, well whatever. If Jack doesn’t get it, doesn’t want to follow him, that’s...fine, actually, because Bitty is actually exhausted. He can picture his bed in his mind’s eye and, God, he didn’t realize how tired he was. 

Shitty nods, and exhales smoke away from the table. “You done good, Bits.”

“Wash your fuckin’ feet before bed, you idiot,” Lardo adds, smiling.

Bitty stands and says, “Night mom, night dad,” and Jack laughs. 

Bitty is already half way up the stairs when he hears Jack say, “Aaaand that’s my cue.”

 

 

 

Bitty is just moving to sit on his bed when Jack appears in his doorway, leaning against the threshold and barely smiling as he looks at Bitty.

“I meant it when I said I was tired,” Bitty says. “I wasn’t lying.”

“Hmm,” Jack hums. “Didn’t think you were.”

“Okay.”

Bitty is wiping at the soles of his feet when Jack moves to sit beside him. “Listen--” Jack starts, then stops. He reaches for Bitty’s right ankle, where it rests on his left knee. “I meant what I said. I’ve been trying to say all week.”

“I know,” Bitty says. “Or, well. I didn’t know all week, but. Once you said, it made sense. I think maybe I was ignoring it because I thought it couldn’t be what I thought.”

“I’ve liked you for a long time,” Jack says. “I had to try, yeah? I didn’t want to not, and then regret not trying.”

“Very captainly of you,” Bitty says, and Jack runs his hand from Bitty’s ankle to his calf, and then squeezes his knee. 

“Not that this isn’t cool,” Jack says, “But I think I’d rather talk about this tomorrow, if that’s something you still wanna do.” 

“That’s--that would be good,” Bitty says. “I’d like that.”

“Good, okay.”

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

Bitty covers Jack’s hand where it’s resting on his knee, and pushes it up his thigh. “Think we could--”

“God, yeah,” Jack says, and then they’re kissing.

It’s kind of sloppy, Bitty thinks. Their teeth clack together at first, and their noses don’t line up until Jack leans over him and the angle changes. They crawl back on Eric’s bed, still kissing, and when Eric hits the pillows, Jack towers over him, one hand propping him up and the other on Eric’s jaw.

Jack lowers himself a bit, rests his weight on Bitty, and they both moan at the contact. Bitty gets his arms around Jack’s middle, and pulls him down until most of his weight is resting on Bitty. They both moan into it, and the sound drives Bitty’s hips up into Jack’s. He reaches to tug at Jack’s hair like he had before, when he’d climbed onto Jack’s shoulders like ti was nothing. 

When Jack pulls back from Eric’s lips, Eric says, “Can I touch you,” and Jack says, “Fuck. Yeah, yeah, please.” 

Jack leans back on his heels and pulls his own shirt off, and Bitty thinks it’s the least he can do to copy him. Jack groans with Bitty leans forward to undo the fly of Jack’s shorts. 

“You, too,” Jack says when Bitty runs his hands up Jack’s front, and then, “these fucking little shorts, like you don’t know how much those squats have been working,” as he palms at Bitty’s dick through his shorts.

“Oh my,” Bitty says. “Jack, c’mon.”

Jack gets Bitty’s fly open, and reaches his hand inside Bitty’s shorts to touch him through the fabric of his underwear. He kisses at Bitty’s collarbones, and bites before licking along the mark he’s sucked into Bitty’s skin. “Jesus,” Bitty says. Jack kisses lower, makes his way down Bitty’s chest and stomach. 

And--

Fuck.

“Can I?” Jack asks, and Eric has to open his eyes, even though he doesn’t know when he closed them. He nods, and holds Jack’s eyes for a moment, and then Jack nods too and kisses Bitty’s tummy before pulling his shorts and underwear down and off in a single movement. “Have you ever--” Jack starts and Bitty shakes his head.

“Good,” Jack says. He sucks another bruise into Eric’s hip, and kisses along his thighs, his hips. By the time Jack finally licks Eric’s cock, he already feels on edge. Jack takes him in his mouth, sucks him down slow and deep. His hand wraps around the base of Eric’s cock, and Eric fights not to buck up into Jack’s mouth. 

Bitty’s hands scramble for Jack’s shoulder, and Jack pops off with an obscene sound to say, “You can, you know. I know you like it.”

Bitty gets his fingers into Jack’s hair. He doesn’t tug, just runs his fingers through it, nails digging softly into Jack’s scalp. Jack moans, and Bitty feels it all through his body. 

After a few minutes, Bitty’s grip tightens and he says, “Jack.” When Jack simply sucks him harder at the warning, Bitty comes, his orgasm hitting him like nothing has before. Jack swallows, and pulls off of Eric. He kisses Eric’s hip once before pulling himself up Eric’ body and wiping the back of his hand across his lips and chin. 

“Woah,” Eric says as he pulls Jack in for a kiss. 

Jack groans into it, and presses his hips into Eric’s leg. 

Bitty runs his hands down Jack’s back, kisses at his jaw, his throat, says, “What do you want?” while Jack rubs off against his thigh.

“This is good,” Jack says. “Already close. Just. Don't stop.”

“Yeah,” Bitty says. “Jack.”

Bitty lets his hands and lips roam; he touches Jack as much as he can, runs his fingertips down Jack’s strong arms, spreads his hands across Jack’s broad shoulders. He kisses at Jack’s cheeks and chin and nose, bites at his ear softly and earns a soft laugh for it. 

When Jack’s rhythm starts to falter, Bitty lets his hands drop to Jack’s ass, grips it and pulls Jack against his body with a fair bit of force, and Jack comes with a groan.

Jack peels himself back from Bitty, and smiles down at him. Bitty laughs and says, “Stop it, oh my gosh, you look like a shark, you’re giving me a headache.”

“You like me,” Jack says. 

Bitty closes his eyes, and he feels the bed shift, but Jack just takes off his dirty pants and tugs at the comforter under Bitty. “Get under.” Bitty rolls over a bit, and Jack tugs the bedding out from under him, and then climbs in behind him. “Budge over.”

“You’re a giant,” Bitty says.

“I’m buying a king for my place in Providence.”

“Big plans?” Bitty says, even as his eyes flutter closed. 

Jack’s arm makes its way over Bitty’s hip, and Jack presses a kiss into Bitty’s neck. “Something like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> on [tumblr](http://www.bittyjack.tumblr.com)//


End file.
